Three Things:
My memoir got its 223rd review on Amazon today.
On Saturday 10 am I'll be on a memoir-writing panel called Thanks for the Memories at the Genre-LA writers conference at the Los Angeles Valley College.
Sunday I'll be online all day at We Love Memoirs Sunday Spotlight.
I actually thought I'd be done with book marketing a year after the memoir was published. Was I wrong! It seems that this book keeps re-emerging and providing inspiration for would-be memoir writers or the right words of encouragement for those also affected by mental illness and suicide. I feel so grateful for that.
Here is its latest five-star review from Lindsay De Felix: on Amazon for Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mother's Memoir of Living with Her Son's Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide.
This is a very hard book for me to write a review on. It is about a subject which I have no knowledge of – a bipolar son who commits suicide. I don’t know anyone well who suffers from bip … [Read more...]

Deborah and I met in Pilates class. We never said more than hello for about six months until one day I mentioned I had to rush away after class because I had a lot of work to do. She asked what I did, and when I said I am a writer, her eyes lit up. She said, I'm a writer too. And our friendship was off and running. I've read a lot of her stories, and I totally agree. She is a writer. I'm so happy to introduce her work to you.
My Writing Life
By Deborah Kalan
I have been writing seriously since my eleventh birthday when I received a leatherette diary the color of blue Irises. The diary was secured with a little strap that had a gold lock and two gold keys. On the front of it were the words Dear Diary. Each page was divided into five sections of about five lines, which in my 11-year-old mind, restricted me to extremely brief entries.
In those days, I mostly wrote about boys. The cute ones, the creepy ones, the ones that liked me, the ones that I liked who didn't like me. B … [Read more...]